Who do you spend the most time with?

"Find people who've done what you want to do and surround yourself with them."

-Jeff Olson

 

"We acquire the characteristics of the people we associate with on a steady basis."

-Zig Ziglar

 

"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."

-Jim Rohn

 

One of the seven "D's" that I believe make it possible to achieve your dream is to... "Discuss."  Now when talking about this before, I have really emphasized the importance of being held accountable.  When we talk with others and share our passions, we then tend to feel a form of pressure and responsibility to go out and achieve what we have set our minds on.  The natural man does not want to disappoint others.

 

Another aspect of "Discuss" that I want to talk about deals with the quotes I have shared with you today.  I guarantee each and every one of you will be able to look at your own life and see how this has impacted you.  I went through high school with several different groups of friends.  I was also one of the more quiet kids in school and found myself to be very observant.  People will act differently depending on who they are with at the time.  Notice how your language will change when you are around different people.  Notice how you dress when you are going out with different people.  Notice your thought processes when you are around these different people.

 

The natural man will change the way they act around these different people.  With this in mind, it now gives us two options:  First, we have to accept that this does happen and be self aware of it.  So that next time you are hanging out with Jim, who tends to use inappropriate language, you will closely watch yourself so that you do not slowly slip into the bad habit of using this language yourself.  Second, we simply change who we spend our time with.  In my opinion, this would be the better option, and let me explain why... In option number one, we have to use up our time and energy making sure we do not become the person who you are around.  In option number two, we let the good influences of the people we are around bring out the best of who we are.  I challenge each and every one of you to look at who you spend the most time with and see if there is a need for change.  I also challenge you to be that positive influence for those who enjoy to spend their time with you!  Best of luck, my friends.

Fear is self-imposed... meaning it doesn't exist.

"Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will."

-Karim Seddiki

 

Today I would love to share with you an electrifying speech by Greg Plitt.  Now please take into account that this is a speech that has been transcribed.  If you get a chance, go and youtube this speech.  It is much more powerful when you can hear his excitement and energy.  It is very contagious.  Enjoy and best of luck, my friends.

"You don't burn out mentally... because you'll always burn out physically. You're gonna feel the soreness you've never felt before... It's suppose to be that way! It means you're using muscles you haven't used before. Your body's wakin' up. Sharpen your arsenal for perfection in what you can be, but if you didn't know that mentally, you didn't prepare for that. You think something's wrong maybe it's time to stop... NO IT'S TIME TO MOVE FREE AND FURTHER!.. and even though you go to the gym and put your time in there, ya check the box 'Yeah I went to the gym, man. All good'... You come back around, you go to the mirror.. 'Man, I'm not seeing anything. I'm not seeing anything. I'm not seeing any changes.' No...

Well, because you haven't push yourself for your body to have the reason to change. If I give a valiant effort to something, day in and day out, and I saw no change, I would probably quit too. When you embark in this journey, you must know that it's gonna go down before it comes up... And when it comes up, it's gonna go so much higher than you've ever been.

Sacrificing today for tomorrow. I couldn't hold myself up. Hitting the pavement. I'm okay with that... cuz tomorrow I'll get back up... and do it again and I'm gonna try to beat my last performance.

In life, it's not the genetic guy who wins, or the guy who has the most potential who wins... It's the person with great PERSERVERANCE who wins. Always want to get up and go at it again and go at it again. That's the guy who has his hands raised later in life, guys. That's the guy you guys need to be. Record everything. What you eat, your training habits, how you feel. You take a picture of yourself one day on day 1, you put it on a mirror. That's who I'll never be again. That's day 1. Say goodbye to him. Behind that picture you write down your weight, your height, all your information, your bodyfat. Take tape measures around your arms, your waist, your thighs. Record where you've been. And when the struggle gets hard, and you feel like you're not going anywhere, go back to day 1 and remeasure it. #$%*, It's worth it.

It's not an easy path... 90 days out man I gotta run a marathon. 90 days out I'm gonna enter a bodybuilding contest. 90 days out I have a family reunion/high school reunion. I wanna look my best. 90 days to become that person I wanna be, to turn that dream into reality... I got 90 days.

Today is 1/90 of that opportunity. You guys find a fear, that fear will either create you or destroy you. I love fear. Reason why; behind every fear, there's a person you wanna be. Fear is self-imposed... Meaning it doesn't exist. You create it, you can destroy it too. It's an intangible. If you face your fears guys, you'll realize it's not that big. And once you face it, you're gonna say 'my god, man. All this time I've been running from it.' You know, it's so small. If I just stay still, my god, not only did I face it, but I beat it back. Energy never lost transfered. That negative energy. That fear is destroyed. What else am I... what else am I capable of? What else am I holding myself back from that I am capable of... What am I running from that I don't need to? What else can I OVERCOME? You go after it and you give it all you have... If you lose it, AT LEAST YOU TRIED, MAN!

'I failed' is ten times more of a man than someone who said 'what if?' Cuz 'what if?' NEVER WENT TO THE ARENA!"

-Greg Plitt

Thinking about how we think.

"We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive."

-Albert Einstein

 

"Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, buckle up... today we are about to engage in some extremely deep thought.  Have you ever met anyone, or just been in the presents of someone, who make you stop and just think to yourself... "Wow, that is deep.  How in the world did they come up with that?  How in the world can someone even comprehend that?  They have some crazy gears turning up there!"  Unfortunately, we do not come across enough of these people!  If you are taking the time to read this today, maybe we can change, or make you think about, the way you think!

 

Welcome to the 21st century where all we have time to think about is everything we need to get done today!  I challenge you to walk down the halls of a high school, or go to the grocery store and listen to what people talk about.  I guarantee you will hear a lot of gossip...  So what am I suggesting?  I truly believe we are more than that.  I truly believe we are meant to be deeper than that.  Our body and our brain is so sophisticated that it just blows my mind.  My goal here today is to try and get you to think about how we think, function, and even socialize.  Let me take a few minutes to share a story and a few ideas with you:

 

Like minded individuals!  One of my recent hobbies or interests is crossfit.  The biggest thing you will realize with crossfit is that people who do crossfit love to talk about crossfit!  Well the other day I stopped in to see my mom at work.  She has a coworker who goes to the same gym as myself.  We usually don't go in at the same time so I have never actually met this man.  Well after my mom introduced us, naturally, we started talking about crossfit.  We ended up going on and on about recent achievements, struggles, goals, and so on and so forth.  Before I knew it I had been there for almost an hour!  Never met this person before, but by the end of that conversation we were talking and laughing as if we were best friends.

 

Time to ourselves should never be wasted!  Now naturally whenever we have a few spare minutes to ourselves, it feels great to just sit down and veg.  Every once in a while, we all need this!  For the most part though, this is a great opportunity to go into deep thought.  Continuing on with my story: Later that day, all I could think about was that conversation and the topic of our conversation.  We had bounced great ideas and tips off of each other and it was now time to take it a step farther.  I could have stopped there, forgot about that conversation, and continued on with life just fine... But I would have missed out on a great opportunity to utilize new information and incorporate these new concepts into my own personal training.

 

Look at some of the technology we have today...  That right there is a result of people who got together, went into deep thought, bounced ideas around, and then acted on those ideas.  I know this is kind of random today, but I just felt like I really needed to share this concept.  It is extremely hard to achieve our dreams on our own.  If we can begin to think and converse in  new and deeper ways, we will surely find ourselves achieving new and exciting dreams we otherwise would have never even thought of!  Take a few minutes today and just... think!  Best of luck, my friends!

Great moments are born from great opportunity.

"Great moments are born from great opportunity. That's what you have here, tonight, boys. That's what you've earned here tonight. One game. If we played them ten times, they might win nine, but not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate. Tonight, we stay with them, and we shut them down, because we can! Tonight, WE are the greatest hockey team in the world. You were born to be hockey players, every one of you. And you were meant to be here tonight. This is your time!

-Herb Brooks

 

We are a blessed people.  Opportunity surrounds us at every second of every day.  So why are some more successful than others?  First, when faced with great opportunity, we must recognize it.  There is a very famous quote by Thomas Edison that reads "We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work."  Second, we must be willing.  We must be willing to give everything we have.  Blood, sweat, and tears, right?  Maybe not in every scenario, but we get the point.  As you go through your day, look for opportunity.  It comes in all shapes and sizes.  And when you see it, grab it and do everything you can to hold on and turn that great opportunity into a great moment.  Best of luck, my friends.

Becoming grateful for failure.

Michael Jordan.  Bill Gates.  Albert Einstein.  Jim Carrey.  Bethany Hamilton.  Benjamin Franklin.  Stephen King.  Thomas Edison.  Vincent Van Gogh.  Franklin Roosevelt.  Simon Cowell.  Steven Spielberg. 

All of these people and so many more have one huge thing in common: failures and misfortunes.  We have all read about these amazing people who fail so many times and then one day it clicked, and now they are some of the most successful people in the world.  Why?  Because failure fuels their motivation. 

I love sports and I love learning about some of my favorite athletes.  One of the most common trends I find with these athletes is both failures and then determination.  Ever athlete out there has lost a game, missed a shot, had a bad season, or even suffered from an injury.  So then why are they so good?  They learned from these failures.  They let failure drive their motivation to become better.  Any athlete out there knows how awful it feels to walk off the field after a bad game.  Yet so many of us, myself included, become more frustrated than anything else.  We have to learn how to "walk it off" and bounce back.  The faster we can bounce back, learn from our failures, and get back at it, the better we will become. 

Whether you are an athlete in the competitive field, someone trying to live a healthier lifestyle, or maybe you are striving to achieve great success in the academic world... whatever it may be, you will face failure at one point or another.  Become grateful for failure, learn from failure, and then you will become successful.  Best of luck, my friends.

2014: Time to refocus, not restart.

How many of us made some form of new years resolution?  I am sure most all of us probably did!  Well... how are they going??  Statistics show that over 40% of people don't make it past one month.  As we approach one month, I hope we can all continue to remain strong!

 

May I offer up one word of caution?  When I listen to people talk about their new goals for the year, it often comes across as a time to restart.  I like to think of the new year as a time to refocus.  Whatever has happened over the last year, whether good or bad, has happened so that we can learn from it.  Use this time to reflect on the past year, learn from it, and make changes to make this year even better.

 

Sorry for the late post!  I hope all of you had an amazing holiday season and have kicked off the new year right!  Best of luck!

Don't live a "what if" life.

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

"I would rather fail one thousand times before I ever have to look in the mirror and say 'what if'."

-Tyler Nelson

 

Looking back at times in my life when I have failed, it hurts, but from those failures I grew.  When I look back at times in my life when I never tried... well, I guess I'll never know, and that hurts a lot more than failure ever will.  With failure comes an opportunity to rise up, to learn, to become more.  If we never try, we are only left with a nagging feeling as we wonder what we could have done, what we could have become.  When given that opportunity... try.  Best of luck, my friends.